


Four Years and Change

by Canon_Is_Relative



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Community: spnspringfling, F/F, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Friends to Lovers, It's For a Case, LGBTQ Character, LGBTQ Themes, Supernatural Spring Fling 2017
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-20
Updated: 2017-04-20
Packaged: 2018-10-21 07:26:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,564
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10680546
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Canon_Is_Relative/pseuds/Canon_Is_Relative
Summary: Jody, Donna, and Claire are working a case together. Claire comes up with a, quote, Awesome Cover Story for the two sheriffs. Jody needs a minute to warm up to the idea.





	Four Years and Change

**Author's Note:**

> For last_imperatrix who prompted Jody/Donna and "How long have you been together?" Thanks to her for the prompts, to the spring fling mods for running a delightful fest, and to impish_tubist for cheerleading and reading this over for me.

"Sheesh. It looks like a kid's birthday party gone wrong in here." Donna wrinkled her nose, hands on her hips as she surveyed the scene.

"You sure this is the right…funeral?" Jody asked, because Donna wasn't wrong about the decor. They'd walked into a grungy little church, down a grungy little corridor, and opened the door to grungy little fellowship hall decked out in rainbow streamers and balloons with upbeat music streaming from someone's tinny laptop speakers while at least a hundred people dressed in black milled around, speaking in murmurs and sniffling.

"Well this is definitely our vic," Donna said, placing the framed photograph carefully back in its place on the long table just inside the door. 

Jody moved to stand beside her, gazing down all the photos, notes, keepsakes; offerings from the friends and family of the deceased woman, sacrifices to an uncaring god. _This can't be right. Please change your mind. Can't you see what she means to us._

"This is beyond tacky." Jody turned to see a middle-aged woman who looked like she was dressed for New York City rather than Brainerd, Minnesota.

"Don't be a snob, Liz," the man beside her handed her a glass of wine in a plastic cup.

"I'm not a snob," Liz snapped. "I just think a death in the family entails some amount of decorum. Who are all these people?" 

"'All these people' _are_ Sibbie's family. You know she only reconciled with her mom and dad a couple years ago, _this_ is the family she made for herself when her own parents disowned her."

Liz turned away, producing a tissue from her purse and dabbing surreptitiously at her eyes. She saw Jody watching her and her face went shuttered once more.

"Let's go mingle," Jody said, bumping her shoulder against Donna's. "See if Claire's made any progress."

"Ya know," Donna said, "I always thought this was what I'd want, when I, you know, kicked it. A Celebration of Life, it sounds so…I don't know, I just like the idea of people getting together to get blingoed on cheap wine and tell stories and laugh."

"Yeah?" Jody asked, lifting an eyebrow when Donna paused by the refreshment table to root through a cooler full of ice.

"I don't mean, I mean I don't expect – it's just a nice thought, don't you know, that you'd lead that kind of life. But this…jeez, I don't even know the lady and I'm getting a contact low just from being around all these sad folks!"

"I think a 'celebration of life' works better as a concept when one's life has lasted longer than fifty years."

"I'll drink to that," Donna said, and they clinked beer cans, Donna's dimples making a split-second appearance when she smiled at Jody before they drank.

Across the crowded hall, Jody caught sight of Claire, talking with the victim's mother. The vic – Sibyl Bermond – had been a professor at Claire's community college. Claire hadn't actually taken any classes with her but no one needed to know that. This was the 3rd mysterious death in Crow Wing County this summer – all teachers, all returning home to visit family over the break. 

Claire looked up and straight at Jody like she'd sensed eyes on her – sixth sense, hunter sense, or just constant hyper-vigilance, Jody could only guess – and nodded, saying something to the mother and shaking her hand.

Claire had been the one to call Donna about the case. Brainerd was hardly two hours from Hibbing so it made more sense than it didn't, but Jody hadn't wanted to make the call. She hadn't seen Donna in almost four months, not since they took the girls on a camping trip in the Black Hills when Alex was on spring break. Claire had promised to leave her hunting gear behind, but no one made a fuss about the lie when they came across a Wendigo and she saved all their asses.

'Why does this stuff always happen to us?' Jody had asked Donna back at the truck, new injuries screaming at her while old ones simply scolded, resigned. 

'Just lucky I guess,' Donna had said, smiling. Still smiling, always smiling. She had blood matted in her hair and a deep scratch across one cheek that looked like it was already infected despite Claire's attempts at field first aid.

'Right. Lucky.'

'Come on, Jody-o. Left your sense of adventure back in Sioux Falls? Next time we'll be better prepared!'

'Next time. Why does there have to be a next time? What if next time – what if Claire, or Alex, or, or you—'

'Oh, hush now.' Donna had pulled Jody into a hug. Blood and mud and sweat and fruity shampoo, Jody buried her face against Donna's neck and breathed her in. Donna's hand was warm on the back of her neck as she said, 'You ain't getting' rid of me that easy, Mills.'

Behind her, Claire had cleared her throat and reminded them that Alex had an exam Monday morning so they needed to get back. And then she'd smirked at Jody every time they met each other's eyes in the rear-view mirror. And later Jody found a note tucked into her wallet: _You told me once that the scary thing about family was how it gives you so much more to lose. You were 100% right. The scarier thing maybe is how it's also 110% worth it. -A_

"Cream puff?" Jody shook herself and focused on the young man in front of her who was offering a plate. The guy she'd been eavesdropping on earlier.

"Thanks," Jody said, pulling on a pained smile. "Sibbie's favorite, huh?"

"I guess, yeah." Surprise flickered across his face. "You knew her better, maybe. I'm Grant."

"Jody," she said, awkwardly shifting her cream puff to shake hands with the guy. 

"Ooh, thanks!" Donna said, taking it from her.

"No, I wasn't – never mind. You're welcome."

Donna grinned at her and bit into it. Jody rolled her eyes.

"So, how long have you two been together?" Grant asked.

Jody looked over her shoulder, and back at him. "Beg pardon?"

He smiled. "I was talking to your daughter earlier, Claire, right? Oh – hi, again."

Claire had appeared at Donna's side and after a quick wave at Grant was whispering in Donna's ear and, before Jody could stumble through a sentence about how they were here together but they weren't _together_ -together, Donna straightened up and linked her arm through Jody's, smiling at her and saying wistfully, "Oh, we don't really keep track, we aren't what you'd call 'anniversary people.' But it's gotta be, dunno, it's at least four years, sure, yeah, four years and change since that work thing where we met."

Jody gaped. Donna twined their fingers together.

"Okay, but what the hell?" Jody hissed when they finally managed to lose Grant – first cousin of the vic, Liz was his sister, they'd all been close as children but lost touch as adults, 'Family drama, you know,' – shaking Donna off and glaring in turn between her and Claire.

"Look around you, Jody," Claire said, hip cocked and head to one side, the textbook illustration of 'Duh.' "Professor Sibyl was like, _super_ gay, she was this major activist in the LGBT community here and at my school, these are all her friends and students so I gave you an awesome cover story."

"Why do we need an 'awesome cover story', I thought we were just here as—"

"My parents, supporting me through this difficult time. What, you think 'off-duty sheriffs' would go over better? We're trying to blend in."

"And let's be real, Jodes." Donna was watching her with a gleam in her eye. "You're kind of butch."

"Next time you two want to work a case you can find me pulling overtime at the station," Jody said, rubbing her eyes.

So it turned out that, back in the day, Jody and Sibyl – Sibbie – went to the same summer camp, where they'd gone through the predictable adolescent fumblings of are-we-aren't-we, but neither of them had come out until their mid-twenties and that's why none of the close-knit web of family and friends knew about Jody: they'd been each other's secret, only reconnecting online a couple of months ago and making plans to meet up. 

Oh. And Jody also had a girlfriend of several years named Donna. "Yeah, Donna, you know her – blonde, dimples, way too perky to be real, keeps you from going totally darkside." Claire played the part of the Oversharing Daughter with admirable conviction.

"So I checked her apartment back in Sioux Falls and there was nothing," Claire was saying, when Jody finally redirected her back to the subject at hand: the Mysterious Case of the Professor who Died for No Reason. "No hex bags, no EMF, etc. So I figure now's the best time to check the family home while everyone's here so I'll slip out. You cover for me if anyone asks where I went, okay?"

"Sure, yeah. Hey, be careful kid, all right?"

Claire had already turned to leave, but she stopped to look back over her shoulder and smirk. "You too. Use protection, okay?"

"What the hell…" Jody muttered as Claire flounced away, then turned and made her way over to where Donna was sitting with a group of people, all a little younger than she was and all listening to her with rapt attention.

"Eight years I stayed with that man," Donna was telling them, "and in the end he left me with nothing but a freezer full of Ben & Jerry's and a load of issues you'd need a tractor to pull. Uff da. But what can you do, you know, when you don't know who you are or what you want? Yah, Doug was a dick, but that was only half the problem."

"Was the other half the fact that he _had_ a dick?" An exceptionally pretty boy who couldn't have been more than fifteen was chuckling behind his hand.

"Excuse you! We are in a church young man!" Donna said, her tone just a shade too smug to be called scandalized. 

"But what happened," a young woman asked. "Did you leave him for Jody?"

"Not so much, no, not exactly. We'd been divorced a year, Doug and me, but I still cared what he thought about me, you know? Well, it was hard, you see we still worked together so I couldn't exactly avoid him, could I? It's like he was everywhere and I…I went on this crazy diet trying to get skinny and make him regret he ever…but anyway, it was at this work thing, yeah, this retreat, when I first met Jodes, and BAM! From day one, she was there sticking up for me, not taking shit from anyone and not letting me roll over and take it either. You know what she did, she _actually_ called Doug a douche right to his face! Oh, you shoulda seen it, I tell ya. But that's just the kind of prim and proper old lady she is."

"And you see that's what I mean," the same young woman said as the laughter died down around them. "It's not just about discovering who you are, not just about coming out, it's about hearing and _internalizing_ the belief that you _matter_ and you deserve to be treated well. That's what Professor Sibyl did for me, she helped me believe that."

Donna nodded. "You're lucky, then. You all are, to have known her."

Eyes watered and heads bobbed, and the girl said to Donna, "So are you, having someone like Jody."

"Don't I know it, though."

"Do you know that she's standing behind you?" the pretty boy said, tittering behind his hand once again.

"Talking about me, Hanscum?" Jody said, sliding onto the sofa beside her.

"Only good things, Mills."

"I don't believe that for a second," Jody told her, and when Donna smiled back Jody began to relax, felt the moment when her own smiled turn genuine and the space between them began to melt away; the points of contact all along her right side shifting from a straight line to a warm and comfortable blur.

The conversation flowed on around them and Jody followed it the best she could which turned out to be not very well. What the hell was wrong with her, she was the best multitasker she knew; not since Alex had she let personal stuff get to her such that she lost all sight of the big picture. But here she was, thinking with one breath that they ought to do this more often, just spend time out and about interacting like normal people with other normal people – and with the next, wondering who the hell these normal people thought they were, demanding Donna's attention and keeping them from being alone.

"Oh thank god," she breathed when her phone and Donna's beeped simultaneously. Texts from Claire:

_Pretty sure I'm right about what we're dealing with, calling Sam for confirmation. Donna, any luck with the other thing?_

"What 'other thing'?" Jody asked in a murmur, but Donna was already typing.

_You bet. There's a kid here kinda unnaturally pretty who covers his mouth every time he talks._

_Awesome. I'll be back in ten, meet me in the parking lot._

They were hunting around for their coats in the overcrowded hallway rack when Jody stopped, just stopped, and looked at Donna. Donna was talking, a string of running commentary – on the coats, the rain they could hear lashing against the windows, the likelihood that Sam would agree with Claire about what they were hunting – that fell silent when she looked up and met Jody's eyes. 

She shrugged into her jacket, looking down at the floor and taking a deep breath. Her cheeks were flushed when she looked back up at Jody. "All right, I know. I overplayed it back there, but I'm not—"

"No," Jody said quickly, shaking her head and reaching forward. "No. That's not what I was going to say."

"No?" Donna's eyes flickered between Jody's face and where their fingers were interlaced.

"No," Jody echoed, taking a step closer. 

"Ohh," Donna let out a breath in a rush. "I hope to h-e-double-hockey-sticks you're not just playing along with me Jody cuz I don't know if I…"

"I'm not, I'm not. I don't know, I don't…"

A door slammed shut and sandals slapped against the tiled floor towards them, and Jody dropped her hands from Donna's face, turned to meet the intruder.

"Oh! I'm sorry, did I…?" The young woman from earlier skidded to a stop in front of them, looking embarrassed. "I just wanted to catch you before you left, say how nice it was to meet you both. I wish it was under different circumstances but…I'm still glad."

"Me too, Lily," Donna said with shaky smile as she reached for the girl's hand. "You take care of yourself now, hear?"

"I will. But can I just ask, about you two, I mean you're so…I was just wondering how long it took you to…how long you've been together?"

"Oh," Donna said, blushing but meeting Jody's eyes. "About fifteen minutes, now."

Jody snorted. "And what about the four years and change before that?" She reached for Donna's hand. "Come on, Hanscum. We got work to do."


End file.
